The average cold lasts 5-7 days; the flu can leave you feeling dragged out for a couple of weeks. Even a broken bone heals eventually.
I have had daily chronic pain since 2009. 4 years, 4 months and 19 days. 225 weeks. 1585 days. Almost 40,000 hours of nearly non-stop aching, burning, gnawing, itchy, lancinating, pulsing, radiating, shooting, spreading, tearing and/or throbbing pain.
…
Read the rest at B2L2.
Just read. And smile.
Unified Backlash to Education Mandates Grows, Spreads. EducationOpportunityNetwork.org, 5/14/13. HT: Diane Ravitch
Kingkade, Tyler. “Yale Faces $165,000 Clery Act Fine For Failing To Report Sex Offenses On Campus.” HuffPo, 5/15/13.
Yale failed to report a total of four forcible sex offenses in its campus crime statistics for 2001 and 2002, according to an April 19 letter from Mary E. Gust, director of administrative actions and appeals service group at the DOE. As a result, the department is fining the university $27,500 for each offense, the letter said. The Connecticut Ivy League university also received a $27,500 fine for failing to include seven required policy statements in its annual crime reports, and another $27,500 for not including crime statistics from Yale-New Haven Hospital in its annual campus crime data.
The Clery Act is a federal law requiring colleges to disclose campus crime data and issue safety alerts. Forcible sex offenses under the Clery Act include rape, fondling and sexual assault.
The fines Yale faces are the result of a seven-year investigation into the university’s compliance with the Clery Act, which began in 2004 and concluded in 2011. Gust noted in her letter that in 2004 Yale did correct its data, but only after the department pointed out the discrepancy.
…Yale press secretary Thomas Conroy said in a statement to The Huffington Post that student safety is “of paramount importance.” The university is committed to following Clery requirements, he said.
“However, the university believes that the department’s imposition of maximum fines is not warranted based on the particular situations that resulted in findings of violations and, as a result, does not meaningfully advance the goals of the Clery Act,” Conroy said. “The university has therefore requested that the department reconsider and lower the fine.”
Does Mr. Conroy mean the “forcible sex offenses” that led to these specific fines? If so, who at Yale determined that those “forcible sex offenses” did not merit reporting to the Yale community and had nothing to do with the Clery Act? Is it Yale’s place to decide which offenses, and especially which sexual offenses, will be reported, and to whose advantage or best interest is it to not report these sexual offenses? It’s not in the best interest of students, or the specific victims of these “sex offenses,” for information to be censored, altered, withheld or deemed not important enough. Too often, university administrators first think of “the good of the university,” which too often means a school’s “reputation” and sweeping under rugs what is distasteful but true, then of their own culpability and employment rather than student safety, student interests, or students’ right to know what happens on campus so they can make the proper decisions. Mr. Conroy seems to be saying that because of the way the violations were found, or because of the specific details of the offenses, that Yale is somehow less culpable and therefore should not be punished as much as if they’d done something, I guess, more outrageous. Is he really in that statement considering student safety? Or does a concern for student safety mean that past violations shouldn’t be punished as severely? Or is a school with a $19.2 billion endowment crying poor mouth over $165,000? Can’t they fire or lay off without pay one administrator or so to pay that off? If these “offenses” had ended in death or permanent physical injury, would Yale not object to paying the full penalty, at 2002 rates?
Women do not have to die, or be gang-raped, or beaten half to death to be harmed by sexual inappropriateness or invasion or assault. There is no situation in which a woman’s behavior, or not-behavior, is justification for sexual abuse of any type or degree. It is always a violation and the perpetrators should not be protected more than victims and potential victims just because of a university’s “concern” for what-the-fuck-ever.
This guest post at the fabulous Louisiana Voice lays it all out, the politicization the under-the-table dealings, the doublespeak of “reform” and “a new civil rights,” the [probably intentional] lack of oversight, and the sheer disaster of the “model” shoved down our throats as “objective” “truth” and “reform,” when it was never, is not now, and will not be any of those three things. [It is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to but can no longer do post-FM and -spinal stenosis.]
Rock ON, Ms. Picard!
After Katrina, the OPSB located available teachers and planned to re-open 52 schools, but state officials did not support this plan. Instead, the Louisiana Legislature enacted Act 35, which provided for automatic transfer of failing schools to the RSD where the school was in a district deemed academically in crisis.
Academically in crisis was defined as any local system in which more than 30 schools are academically unacceptable or more than 50% of its students attend schools that are academically unacceptable. Whereas in August 2005, a School Performance Score (SPS) of 60 was designated passing, after Hurricane Katrina, the passing score increased to 87.5. What had been considered a passing score was now deemed unacceptable. As a result of Act 35, and the changing SPS standard, the RSD took over 102 of the 126 OPSB schools, bringing the RSD total from five before Katrina to 107 schools after. The SPS reverted to 60 again in 2010.
Despite available certified OPSB teachers, the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) advertised nationally for teachers, and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) approved a contract with Teach For America (TFA) to train and place 125 TFA members in under-resourced public schools in Greater New Orleans and Southern Louisiana.
Although the state had represented to the DOE that it needed funds to pay salaries and benefits of out-of-work school employees, and received more than $500 million to do so, none of the money was used to pay OPSB teachers. Instead, the funds were diverted to the RSD, while the state actively recruited out-of-state employees, offering signing bonuses and housing allowances as high as $17,500.
By the end of that year, OPSB was operating only five schools and nine charters, and because the money follows the child, OPSB was without funds to pay teachers. All OPSB employees were notified that they would be terminated, and would not be allowed to transfer to the charters.
It was deliberate acts that did not allow public schools to open, not a realization from on high that only charter schools could save The Children, Those Children.
Meanwhile, closer to home, a Minnesota company, Data Recognition Corp., has more than $93 million in LDOE contracts. Louisiana has a second contract for testing with the California company, Pacific Metrics, for $39.8 million.
This year more than 155,000 public school students in grades eight, nine, and 10 will take new tests—called EXPLORE and PLAN—designed to help students improve their performance on the ACT, a test of college readiness, which now almost all high school juniors will be required to take at state expense.
At least one-third of Louisiana’s entering high school students operate below the basic level in reading, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics, and funding for Louisiana‘s colleges and universities has been slashed, but the state is requiring and paying for large numbers of high school students to take college admission tests.
Why?
Testing companies are not the only ones enjoying Louisiana‘s largess. Louisiana currently has 70 contracts worth more than $1 million each and totaling $282 million; most of these contracts go to out-of-state contractors and are monitored by the LDOE.
The RSD entered a $10.5 million contract with an Illinois company, Durham School Services, to provide bus transportation and another $500,000 to a Missouri company, Transpar Group, to design bus routes and provide oversight. In July 2012, Durham sent lay-off notices to about 200 bus drivers and monitors because the RSD owed the company $7.2 million.
Yes, even though the players screech and gnash about The Children, a lot of money is out there to be gained, lobbied for, demanded If You Want Real Change. Note that as the money increases, more goes outside of the classroom, and state, rather than that increase in spending going to teacher training, classroom equipment, materials, quality food, etc. How is education “improved” if test makers are the main ones reaping the profits?
Because charters are independent entities, students are left in the lurch when things go awry. Schools can be chartered for a five-year period. After year three, depending on student test scores, they may be told that their charters will terminate after year five. News that Sojourner Truth Academy in New Orleans was closing created an exodus of faculty and students. Students were left with the Hobson‘s choice of attending classes without teachers or transferring to other schools that would require them to repeat the year.
In its last year, Sojourner Truth lost over 20 faculty members. Student transfers lead to a budget crunch because schools receive per pupil funding. Locked into rental and service contracts, Sojourner Truth made drastic spending cuts. Paper towels in bathrooms became a luxury. Students reported a breakdown in discipline, and de facto free periods because qualified teachers could not be found to teach classes. A college-bound student reported not know[ing] any science or what fine arts is.
According to data published by the LDOE, in 2009-2010, almost 28 percent of the Recovery School District teachers were first year teachers as compared to less than 11 percent statewide. The RSD has been in a constant state of flux since its inception, taking over schools and then turning many into charters, each time with a change of faculty. This constant turnover means instability for students who can least afford it.
Long, essential reading.
BREAKING: At least dozen people shot at Mother’s Day second line. WWLTV.com, 5/12/13.
Mother’s Day second-line shooting on Frenchmen Street injures at least 12 people. nola.com|The Times Picayune, 5/12/13.
It’s fucking MOTHER’S DAY!
Update: Mother’s Day second-line shooting on Frenchmen Street injures at least 19 people. nola.com|The Times-Picayune, 5/12/13, 7:16 PM.
The full report is here [PDF] and not very long….
The first finding is pretty easy—even if you are dogmatically opposed to the privatization of public schools, if the choice is between a “failing” operator and a new one, you’d choose the new one if you made a choice at all, because who in his/her right mind wants a school to “fail” or to reward an operator for “failure”?
The “strong support” for “school choice,” however that is defined, is not exactly strong, 54% and 50%, and those numbers seem about right for an experiment that was not voted on, not debated or mulled over in public, and which has left no real alternatives since the majority of schools are charters and you will likely send your child to one regardless of its letter grade or charter management organization.
The third finding is not so surprising, and exposes the murky, ugly, fetid racial politics and “politics” of the local school privatization game. Public schools were far from ideal before 2005, many schools had been weakened through neglect and de facto segregation, some struggled to do the best they could, others had teachers and staff that were burned out or not trained enough or educated enough or supported enough for the jobs they had to do, and something did need to be done. The fact that something needed to be done does not and did not mean that privatization was the sole or best answer to problems that were not well-defined. Folks in the US like “change” and tend to think “change” or “new” is better than “old” or certain statuses quo. When the narrative is that the Bad Old System has been slain and replaced with White Knights in Shiny Armor, it’s easy to believe, especially the less contact you have with public schools and the students and families and public education, that “change” has of course meant “better.” [I do not agree that crisis or "crisis" or "failure" means that any drastic means are necessary and are the only things that will work. This approach has not been used on the US tax code, on NOLA property assessments, etc.] Even with all this Change, it is still true that NO “public” schools are still majority black [browse the Parents Guide to New Orleans Public Schools (PDF)], and The Change did not bring an influx of white, middle class families to the school system or eliminate all problems.
The “strong support for changes to the school board” is odd considering how few schools OPSB operates now compared to the past and RSD/BESE, and that it has cleaned up a bit over the years. Also, charter operators have had a few problems of their own and are not infallible. This “support” looks to me like an effect of the heavy-handed villainization of OPSB, the “public schools” and their teachers in support of The Change and Reform. Public institutions are prone to corruption, error, sometimes criminal behavior [private ones, too] which is why oversight is so critical. The foxes will raid the hen house if the door is open or if you let the foxes set up the security system without any oversight, supervision, or consequences. Before 2005, few people cared much about the schools; their kids didn’t go there or it was all they could do to get their school to work for their child or they had no kids and did/could not see how what happens to other people’s children had anything to do with them, globally or personally.
The final key finding is deceptively written, emphasizing that 37% as if it were 73%. It skips over the 63% who don’t think the schools are better or had mixed responses or just didn’t know. 37% is not a plurality.
52% believe the schools are about the same or were better before, and 11% don’t know ["uncertain"] so a plurality doesn’t agree that the schools “are better after Katrina.” You may like one number but the rest of the story may be more complex than what you want to see. At least I used to tell my students that….
It’s interesting how many white [and "other"] respondents believe the schools “are better after Katrina” considering how few of them are in the school system [over 90% of white students are concentrated in a handful of schools, I think 4, maybe 6]. This belief may be based more on what’s read in the paper, seen in the news, and promoted by privatization supporters and charter operators than seeing what “choice” actually means for some parents. This might be civic engagement or successful advertising and narrative promotion.
34% of black respondents believed the schools “were better before.” Is this about “choice,” boards, OPSB, RSD, individual schools, jobs?
The text is critical because the colors change in this graph from what’s used before—here, green is African American respondents and blue is “white and other.” Again, whites, who are drastically underrepresented in the public school system, believe that the public schools should not be returned to the OPSB and local control.
Of interest—an equal percentage of blacks and whites were “uncertain.”
This question also has a change-is-Better! subtext—the newly elected board can only inspire more “confidence” if it is believed that the “old,” and elected, board was thoroughly and irredeemably rotten, which is a narrative, simplified from an unpleasant but also complex distant and recent past. Whites seem to have more confidence in this “new.” But again, an equal percentage of black and white respondents were “uncertain.”
66% chose a local option, a more significant percentage than 50%, 54%, 51% or 37%. Even with doubts about OPSB and a vicious narrative that is partly true and part demonization to serve other ends, respondents wanted some local connection to or control over the schools, chartered or not.
This question is hampered by the fact that there has been, and there are no plans for, a method of school “Reform” or “improvement” that is not privatization, and privatization and charter schools have not been shown to be significantly better than traditional public schools. Locally, some schools had a bump in test scores, others were able to change the school culture, but you don’t have to privatize public schools to do either or to implement change that will “improve student learning,” including discussion as to what “improve” and “student learning” mean. Narrowing the student body, having an admissions process that is more than or different than the OneApp, requiring x or s from parents/guardians, high-stakes standardized tests and teaching to the test are all things that can increase test scores or make a school look “changed” or even “new,” public or charter. It doesn’t mean that what happens in the classroom has fundamentally changed or that what is happening in the classroom post-”Reform” is “change” or “better” or in the best interests of educating soon-to-be voting, working, parenting, active citizens in a democracy.
Yes, OPSB had its problems, and it is not the only institution, public or private, to have them, but City Hall also has systemic, a-productive, wasteful problems but the building hasn’t been torn down [yet] and everyone replaced with out-of-towners, and the mayor made an appointed role.
The report breezily refers to “the reforms that were implemented following Katrina” that were drastic, not discussed or voted or agreed upon by any significant percentage of the public, either voting or involved in the public schools, and was not presented as an a la carte but a single tool for every single problem, regardless of the problem, its causes or symptoms, and what others in K-12, universities research, reporting learned and tried and saw and evaluated [10]. There are educational reform ideas out there. Putting public money and institutions into private hands is not an educational idea but a business idea, a free-market idea, a political axe to grind and prove on the backs of kids who are not those of the primary decision-makers, a group of decision-makers who see opposition from stakeholders as “proof” they are doing “the right thing for [their own] good” and come to the table with contempt for the stakeholders and a matching ignorance of the profession and field.
Support for The “Reform”? Not exactly. It’s muddled even when the Cowen Institute reports on it. Simple answers to complex problems do not bring clear skies.
—-
Scott S. Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives. K-12 Public Education through the Public’s Eye: Voters’ Perception of Public Education [research brief]. Tulane University, April 2013. Available in PDF at http://utno.la.aft.org/files/cowen_institute _k -12_public_education_through_the_publics_eye_0.pdf.
If you feel the way I do that’s it’s time we limited the power of the Governor to run and ruin education, please ask your legislators to vote for Senate Bill 41 by Kostelka, that would propose a constitutional amendment changing the position of State Superintendent to an elected office. What could be fairer? This is the ultimate parental choice legislation. At least this way we could judge each candidate on the important issues such as vouchers to religious schools (which has never received a vote of the people in Louisiana).
SB 41 is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Education Committee this Wednesday, May 1 at 9:00 AM. Please send emails and make phone calls to the Senate Education Committee members asking them to vote “yes” for SB 41.
I just got word this morning that the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education will strongly support this legislation.
Michael Deshotels. Let the People Choose Our Next State Superintendent. LA Educator (blog), 4/29/13.
from Jezebel: Animator Scott Benson Eviscerates MRA* Arguments with Clever Cartoon, 4/28/13. [MRA = "Men's Rights Activists"]
See Who IS Rayne Martin?, 5/24/2010.
Story #3: If you wonder why the COMPASS has been so poorly implemented, let me give you some background. You already knew about Ms. Molly Hortsman, the three year TFA’er who was put in charge of the training of principals in the use of the COMPASS last year. Ms Hortsman insulted a room full of highly competent administrators by fussing at them for not paying close attention to her amateur instructors. But before all that, did you know that the designer of COMPASS for Louisiana was…Rayne Martin who had no training in education whatsoever, who had never served as a teacher for even one day, and who had never served as a principal. She was hired with no knowledge of education, to create and implement the instrument that would be used by thousands of highly qualified and experienced educators in Louisiana. No wonder Charlotte Danielson, who developed the program upon which COMPASS is based denounced the whole Louisiana evaluation system in a story carried by the Monore News Star. Rayne Martin is now the director of Stand for Children Louisiana, an “[astro] turf” group that is really funded and controlled by billionaires outside of Louisiana associated with Michael Bloomberg; you know, the guy who bought our new BESE board.
Deshotels, Michael. Big Victories for the Real Educators of Louisiana! Louisiana Educator (blog). 4/25/2013.
…by accident
Wednesday, 4/24/13, 7AM.
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